Sung Kil Moon-Korean Destroyer

I have already made a thread about him, a blog thread, but that was just a short thread, not a proper history thread, so I thought I should do him more justice and write a proper one. Sung Kil Moon was one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, Korean boxers ever. He was one of the greatest brawlers and pressure fighters ever. He was never stopped and only lost twice in his career. He was also a noted amateur boxer and was a world champion at bantamweight in 1986. He first captured the bantamweight title but then after losing it, ventured down to super flyweight, where he dominated and had his best achievements. He retired rather young at 30 and left behind a record of 20 wins, with 15 kayos and 2 losses. There is a band named after him and he's one of the very few boxers who have enjoyed this honour.

He was born 20 July 1963 in Seoul. He represented his country South Korea at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, as a bantamweight. After defeating John Hyland of Britain and Robert Shannon of USA, both by stoppage, he lost in the quarterfinal against Pedro Nolasco of Dominican Republic, after he got injured and had to retire after one round. He then won the 1985 world cup at home in Seoul and in 1986 came his crowning achivement as amateur when he became the bantamweight world champion in Reno, USA. After that, he turned pro next year. After scoring six knockouts, he was matched against the WBA world bantamweight champ, Thai Khaokor Galaxy, 14 August 1988. After 6 rounds Moon was ahead on all three scorecards when Galaxy got cut due to an accidental headbutt and had to quit, thus making Moon the new champion. Moon made his first defense against Edgar Monserrat and put him down three times en route to a 7th round tko. In his second defense he stopped the Japanese Chiaki Kobayashi by 5th round tko. He then went to Thailand to face Galaxy in the rematch and this time Galaxy was dominant, dropping him twice and scoring a shutout victory on points. Wether it was really a shutout is questionable since this was in Thailand, but anyway, Moon was now without a world title. He then decided to campaign as a super flyweight and after winning one fight at the new weight by KO 2, in January 1990 he was given a shot against WBC champion, Ghanaian Nana Yawn Konadu. It was a barnburner of a fight, where Konadu was down three times and Moon twice. After 9 rounds, Moon was unable to continue after sustaining a cut due to an accidental headbutt and the fight went to the scorecards. Moon got it from all three judges and was now a 2-time, 2-weight world champion.

In his first defense he beat the former two-time WBC champ Gilberto Roman of Mexico, after beating him into submission and making him retire after 8 rounds. It was a truly impressive performance and Roman retired after this fight, obviously ruined by Moon. He was only 28. In the next defense against Keiji Matsumura, Moon was again cut and the fight was stopped after 5 rounds. Moon retained the title by technical decision. Matsumura was also deducted three points before that for butting. All those fights happened in 1990. Next year it was time for a rematch with Konadu and it happened in Spain. Many were surely expecting a repeat of the first fight, but this time Moon was surprisingly dominant and halted Konadu in the 4th after knocking him down several times. He then knocked out Ernesto Ford of Panama in 5-Ford had previously also been knocked out by Khaosai Galaxy in the fight for the WBA title. After defeating Torsak Pongsupa by TKO 6 and Armando Salazar by TKO 8, in 1992 he faced the clever Greg Richardson, who was briefly the WBC bantamweight champion previously. This time Moon didn't have an easy time against the slick and fast Richardson and the fight went the distance, Moon winning by a very uneven majority decision. In the next fight he made his last great achievement by knocking out the former three-time world champ Hilario Zapata of Panama in 1 round.

However, Moon showed signs of sliding in the next fight against Argentinian Carlos Gabriel Salazar and needed a split decision to win. Salazar would later win a world title at both super flyweight and flyweight. On 11 November 1993, in his tenth defense, he finally lost his title to Jose Luis Bueno by a split decision. He retired after that, realizing he is no longer what he used to be. Despite only having 22 fights on his resume, 15 of those were title fights and he won 13 of them by stoppage, which is a quite incredible record. As a fighter, he was known for his power and was extremely aggressive, all-out action fighter. He will go down in history as one of the greatest Asian fighters, alongside Khaosai Galaxy, Flash Elorde and Fighting Harada. He is also one of the greatest punchers of the light divisions.

Re: Sung Kil Moon-Korean Destroyer

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Re: Sung Kil Moon-Korean Destroyer

Great fighter, great write up.

Interestingly an American musician adopted his name for a music project, who did an album with several boxing references

Re: Sung Kil Moon-Korean Destroyer

Great fighter, great write up.

 

Interestingly an American musician adopted his name for a music project, who did an album with several boxing references

Yeah, thanks. I knew about the musician, but I thought it was a band. He had to be a really big boxing fan since he knew who Moon was.